Tom Ross Column: Aston Villa were cheated by Jay Rodriguez but who is to blame for the problem in today's game?

Birmingham radio presenter Tom Ross gives his outspoken views on the beautiful game

The game of football has closed ranks as the malaise of “diving” once again rears its ugly head.

It was clear that Southampton’s Jay Rodriguez dived to earn his side a penalty which, in the end, proved to be Villa’s undoing.

In my opinion neither manager came out with any credit with their post-match comments.

Saints
boss Nigel Adkins said he would not be “getting into” whether his player had dived or not and waffled on afterwards, admitting there was no “contact” by saying his player definitely expected contact so went down.

What on earth was he on about?

As far as I am concerned, he was admitting his player dived without actually saying it.

Villa’s
Paul Lambert would not condemn Rodriguiez but preferred to heap all the
criticism on referee Mark Halsey, who definitely got it wrong, but lots
of ex-professional pundits said they also thought it was a penalty on first seeing it.

The referee only got one look at it and made his decision based on that.

The reality is that with the aid of technology he would have made the correct decision.

Lambert
was rightly sure there was no contact so why not hammer the Saints player instead of the referee because if Rodriguez doesn’t dive there is
no decision for the referee to get wrong.

I just can’t understand why the game closes ranks in these situations.

It
was the same in the Mansfield v Liverpool cup tie when Suarez handled the ball and then kicked it over the line for a goal. Liverpool’s manager and the players all made it clear it’s not their job to referee a
game, but the officials’.

This was backed up by lots of ex-managers and players.

So
why then do players spend the whole 90 minutes trying to referee the game by influencing the referee for every free-kick, throw-in, corner etc?

You see, players don’t cheat; they just try to influence the referee and linesmen to give incorrect decisions their way.

Lambert said Halsey would be embarrassed by his decision to award Southampton a penalty when he saw it on TV.

In
my opinion, the professional game – and I include players and managers –
have a lot more to be embarrassed about than any referee because of the
way they are dragging the game morally into the gutter with greed the driving force behind the cheating.

One
caller to my SPORTSBAR phone-in on 1152 am FREE RADIO 80s suggested if a
player dives to win a penalty and the referee is 100 per cent certain it was a dive then he should award a penalty to the diver’s opponents.

For
me, the only real deterrent is a Monday morning panel that sits and if a
player is guilty of diving then he is banned for three games and if he does it again then it’s a six-game ban. It would soon stop.

However,
the only people who can stop this happening on the pitch are the men who appear to actively condone cheating, diving or going down with minimum contact – the managers. So which manager will be brave enough to
call a halt to cheating? Don’t hold your breath.